AengusOg
Well-Known Member
I work on a Highland pony stud, and every year about this time my boss is reported to the SS(PCA), as her ponies are unrugged and living on bare fields with no hay.
They are pretty fat, having summered well, and anyone who knows anything about Highlands will know these next few weeks is the only chance of getting any weight off them before the spring.
At the first sign of frost, or a dusting of snow, my boss gets her annual visit. The last two years the WHW have turned up as well, presumably because the reporter is no longer getting a response from the SS.
I keep my own horses on the farm from which I rent my cottage and grazing. One year, because of the farm crop rotation situation, there were no stubbles available to me. I put the horses on a hard standing, from which they could access about two acres of rough banks.
I fed them at the gate which soon got a bit poached as the winter progressed, but because it was hard underneath, the mud was only a few inches deep.
My neighbour, a farmer's wife who had lived there for twenty years, sent a mutual friend to 'warn' me that the man from the WHW was coming to inspect their loan pony (a Shetland which has had three bouts of lami that I know of), and that perhaps I should move my horses from 'that terrible place' before he saw them. She said her livery client (a total novice who was only ever near her horse on a Saturday morning) had said how worried she was for my horses, as they had no rugs on and she'd not seen me feeding them.........I had a round feeder which I put haylage in three times a day, and sometimes during the night if it was extremely cold! The rest of the time the horses went of to graze and browse the banks.
The farmer's wife, needless to say, got my opinion on the matter in the morning, when I pointed out to her that I didn't make local enquiries into her husbands farming ability when I saw the local knacker's lorry carting dead cattle off the place several times a year, and that I certainly didn't need any advice from her livery clients, thank you very much.
I never heard any more about it.
However, when I met and introduced myself to the WHW chappie at the Highland Show the following summer, I got the distinct impression he'd heard my name somewhere previously.
The WHW seem to be quite well informed on welfare issues, but the SS are a bunch of numpties........................my personal opinion only.
They are pretty fat, having summered well, and anyone who knows anything about Highlands will know these next few weeks is the only chance of getting any weight off them before the spring.
At the first sign of frost, or a dusting of snow, my boss gets her annual visit. The last two years the WHW have turned up as well, presumably because the reporter is no longer getting a response from the SS.
I keep my own horses on the farm from which I rent my cottage and grazing. One year, because of the farm crop rotation situation, there were no stubbles available to me. I put the horses on a hard standing, from which they could access about two acres of rough banks.
I fed them at the gate which soon got a bit poached as the winter progressed, but because it was hard underneath, the mud was only a few inches deep.
My neighbour, a farmer's wife who had lived there for twenty years, sent a mutual friend to 'warn' me that the man from the WHW was coming to inspect their loan pony (a Shetland which has had three bouts of lami that I know of), and that perhaps I should move my horses from 'that terrible place' before he saw them. She said her livery client (a total novice who was only ever near her horse on a Saturday morning) had said how worried she was for my horses, as they had no rugs on and she'd not seen me feeding them.........I had a round feeder which I put haylage in three times a day, and sometimes during the night if it was extremely cold! The rest of the time the horses went of to graze and browse the banks.
The farmer's wife, needless to say, got my opinion on the matter in the morning, when I pointed out to her that I didn't make local enquiries into her husbands farming ability when I saw the local knacker's lorry carting dead cattle off the place several times a year, and that I certainly didn't need any advice from her livery clients, thank you very much.
I never heard any more about it.
However, when I met and introduced myself to the WHW chappie at the Highland Show the following summer, I got the distinct impression he'd heard my name somewhere previously.
The WHW seem to be quite well informed on welfare issues, but the SS are a bunch of numpties........................my personal opinion only.
